[Book Review]Exquisite Captive

 Title: Exquisite Captive (The Dark Caravan Cycle #1)
Author: Heather Demetrios
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Publication Date: October 7, 2014
Genre: Young Adult // Mythology // Social Issues // Romance
Format: eBook
Source: Library

Forced to obey her master.Compelled to help her enemy.Determined to free herself. 
Nalia is a jinni of tremendous ancient power, the only survivor of a coup that killed nearly everyone she loved. Stuffed into a bottle and sold by a slave trader, she’s now in hiding on the dark caravan, the lucrative jinni slave trade between Arjinna and Earth, where jinn are forced to grant wishes and obey their human masters’ every command. She’d give almost anything to be free of the golden shackles that bind her to Malek, her handsome, cruel master, and his lavish Hollywood lifestyle.
Enter Raif, the enigmatic leader of Arjinna’s revolution and Nalia’s sworn enemy. He promises to free Nalia from her master so that she can return to her ravaged homeland and free her imprisoned brother—all for an unbearably high price. Nalia’s not sure she can trust him, but Raif’s her only hope of escape. With her enemies on the hunt, Earth has become more perilous than ever for Nalia. There’s just one catch: for Raif’s unbinding magic to work, Nalia must gain possession of her bottle…and convince the dangerously persuasive Malek that she truly loves him. Battling a dark past and harboring a terrible secret, Nalia soon realizes her freedom may come at a price too terrible to pay: but how far is she willing to go for it?
Inspired by Arabian Nights, EXQUISITE CAPTIVE brings to life a deliciously seductive world where a wish can be a curse and shadows are sometimes safer than the light (goodreads).




What promised to be an engaging and rich  mythology turned out to be an info dump of a book with a very questionable love interest. 

Plot: I knew that this book was going to be a struggle the moment I cracked the open. I did not feel a connection to Nalia, and I was basically bored the entire novel. We were given glimpses of Nalia's war-torn homeland but it just all seemed out of place and distracted me from the overall storyline. 

Characters: I don't think there was a single character I liked or felt like I actually knew. Nalia basically pardons her master, (and potential love interest? Who knows) Malek's controlling nature because "well, at least he doesn't rape me like other masters." Their relationship bothered me the most, because Malek is clearly a jackass, but Nalia can't seem to see past how sexy and how tortured he was. There is another leg to this love triangle that seems less toxic, but by that point, I didn't even care. 

World Building: Meh, like I said earlier, Nalia has these random memories of her land and her family but it feels so disconnected from Earth that I couldn't properly envision it. 

Short N Sweet: Exquisite Captive made reading feel like a chore and I never once connected with the plot or the characters. It's safe to say that this book was not for me. 

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